


Grace Ain't a Blessing

by iknowhowmystoryends (gorgeouschaos)



Series: If Supernatural was on HBO [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Addiction, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angelic Grace (Supernatural), Drug Use, If Supernatural (TV) Were on HBO, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:28:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27864593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeouschaos/pseuds/iknowhowmystoryends
Summary: Grace is addictive.Dean finds this out the hard way.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: If Supernatural was on HBO [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2040013
Comments: 66
Kudos: 235
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	1. Season Four

**Author's Note:**

> So many thank yous to the amazing cenotaphy, who gave me permission to use concepts from their hbo spn ficlets, which are all gorgeous and you should go read them on their tumblr (fromcenotaphy) as well as everything they’ve written on here.  
> I'm planning on writing at least one more chapter of this and several other fics based on hbo spn concepts, so subscribe to the series if you're interested!  
> Warnings: Addiction, drug use, possible suicide attempt, self-harm, implied/referenced underage prostitution, brief mentions of disordered eating, PTSD, Hell. I think that's everything.  
> As always, thanks for reading, hope you like it, and I love hearing from y'all.

Dean realizes he’s high as the glass of the gas station explodes around him. 

There’s screaming in his ears, sure, but it doesn’t hurt like it should. That’s the first clue. 

The second is that the screaming in his head has gone quiet. 

The third is that his hands don’t shake as he hot wires a car. 

It wears off, of course, whatever it was. Dean attributes it to the relief of getting out of Hell. The itch under his skin comes back in its place and leaves him twitchy and sweating. It’s like when he quit smoking the first time, except it doesn’t get any better with time.

Dean swipes a pack of Marlboros just to see if the aching in his teeth can be solved with nicotine. The first inhale sends him straight back to the rack and he blinks out of the flashback to find himself on the ground, his knife halfway across the room, Sam’s weight pinning him to the shitty motel carpet like that’s going to keep Dean here with him. 

The hands around his wrists throw his body into fight or flight on instinct. Sam rides out Dean’s desperate attempts to get free with the ease of long practice. Dean manages to break his brother’s nose with his forehead. 

Sam shrugs it off easily enough. Sam shrugs off injuries he shouldn’t a lot, these days.

Dean doesn’t try smoking again. He tosses the rest of the pack to a kid standing on a street corner with too few clothes and too many bruises.

“Like that’s gonna help,” Sam mutters as Dean accelerates away too fast. 

“It’ll get him through tonight,” Dean says. “Sometimes that’s enough.” He doesn’t mention the twenty stuck inside the pack.

Sam looks at him a little too hard, but that’s drowned out easily enough by Metallica.

The itching under his skin stays put. 

Being around Castiel helps, turns down the screaming just enough for Dean to realize what a shitty idea falling for an angel would be. 

Dean tries a little bit of everything to make that itch go away. He settles on alcohol like he always has, at least until the first time Castiel heals him after a hunt. 

Dean takes a werewolf claw to the stomach. He’s sitting in the bathtub in his boxers while Sam dumps hydrogen peroxide when Castiel appears in the bathroom. 

Dean definitely doesn’t shriek. Sam spins around, gun in hand. The angel ignores both of them. He drops a blade into his hand and Dean doesn’t flinch, this time, because this at least is familiar. 

Castiel slices his wrist open and shoves it to Dean’s mouth. Dean goes to smack it away because _what the Hell_ but pauses as the blue-white-lightning-copper-smoke taste of it curls into his mouth. 

His whole body convulses; the claw marks heal. 

The screaming in his head stops. 

“Be more careful,” Castiel orders. All Dean can manage is to roll his head towards him. 

Sam ends up turning on the shower and blasting Dean with cold water to sober him up. Dean kind of hates him for it.

They don’t talk about it. 

Dean counts the number of times Castiel feeds him his Grace. 

Two: Dean gets thrown into a wall. The amount of Grace Castiel gives him heals the bruises and the whiplash; when it wears off, Dean steals some of the adderall Sam thinks he doesn’t know about to try to hold onto the high. It doesn’t work, just leaves him jittery and restless and itching for another fix of Castiel.

Five: a vampire with a gun shoots Dean in the leg. Castiel doesn’t wait for them to get back to the hotel, just shows up, smites the vampires, and nicks his arm. Dean sucks on the glowing blue cut greedily and doesn’t think about the way the vampires eyed his neck. 

Seven: Dean lets a poltergeist throw him into a wall. 

Twelve: Dean gets into a bar fight with about three too many people. 

Fourteen: Dean puts his fist through a motel mirror. 

Twenty-seven: Dean slams a car door on his hand. 

Thirty-eight: Dean shoots himself in the leg, right where the vampire had. He tells Sam the gun went off while he was cleaning it.

Forty: Dean overdoses on Percocet and whiskey. He wakes up on the floor with his brother shaking with anger and fear as Castiel forces a small supernova of Grace down his throat.

Dean is never the same after forty. The buzz in his head never really goes away after that.

Later, Dean will think it’s fitting, that it was forty. Everything in his life comes back to that. 

Forty years in Hell. Forty hits of Grace. 

Some days, Dean wonders if there’s a difference. 

In a hospital bed after Alastair nearly kills him, Dean begs Castiel to heal him. Castiel refuses. 

Dean cries for the first time since Hell. 

That’s the moment Castiel becomes Cas, Dean thinks. The first time the angel’s human enough to be cruel.

It’s been a week since time fifty-seven when Sam finally says something. 

“Your hands have been shaking for three days.”

Dean shrugs. “Yours did that time the demon bitch of yours ditched you for two weeks.”

Sam punches him, dislocating Dean’s jaw. 

Cas heals Dean. 

Sam leaves Dean on the floor, twitching from the glacial rush of Cas’ grace on his tongue. Dean stares at the ceiling and laughs. 

When Cas leaves Jimmy Novak, Dean lasts forty hours before he throws up from the way his skin is itching. Sam watches from the doorway with thinly veiled contempt.

Dean starts laughing and can’t stop, even as he vomits again. His ribs scrape together. He can count them, if he tries. He’s been eating less, lately. Somehow food tastes like dust in comparison to the way Cas’ Grace feels on his tongue.

Forty. Forty, forty, forty.

Bobby tricks them both into the panic room.

In one of Sam’s more lucid moments, he helps Bobby cuff Dean so that he stops bashing his head against the wall trying to get Cas’ attention.

Cas only lets Sam out. Dean begs for a taste of Grace like he hasn’t begged since his last day on the rack. 

This time, Cas doesn’t save him. 

Lucifer’s rising throws Dean into a high so strong he passes out.


	2. Season Five: Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a final in less than an hour. Naturally, I'm writing fanfiction.   
> Mild/vague sexual content in this chapter. If you want to skip it, it's the section with "Dean bites down... all the same."  
> There will be more of season five at the least. I just liked where this chapter ended.   
> As always, thanks for reading, hope you like it, and I love hearing from y'all.

They throw him into the panic room again. Dean begs for Alastair to stop, for Cas to save him, for five days. 

The cravings don’t stop after those five days. Dean just manages to stop screaming. 

“Say yes,” Zachariah says. “Say yes and you’ll have an archangel inside of you. Remember how good Lucifer felt? Imagine feeling that way for the rest of eternity.”

Dean’s not proud of it, but he considers it for a split second. 

“Go fuck yourself,” he says. “I’m not doing it.”

“Oh, but you will,” Zachariah says, and Dean can only hope he’s strong enough. 

Whatever Zachariah does fucks up something deep inside Dean’s guts. Dean spits up blood as Cas heals Sam; Dean watches Cas turn to him and hesitate. 

“Don’t,” Sam says, reaching for Cas’ arm. 

“He’ll die.”

Dean coughs, spraying more blood onto the floor. He doesn’t say anything. What would he say, if he could even talk?

Who is he kidding? He’d beg for Cas’ Grace. 

“Don’t, Cas,” Sam repeats, softer. 

Cas shakes him off and brings the glowing cut on his arm to Dean’s mouth. Dean swallows Grace and feels everything inside go quiet.

Sam hauls Dean back to the Impala, drops him in the passenger seat, and hauls ass to the hospital. 

Sam won’t look at him. 

Dean wishes it was because of the revelation about Michael. Dean wishes Sam wasn’t a fucking hypocrite. Dean wishes Sam hadn’t let the Devil out. 

Dean wishes a lot of things.

Bobby refuses to let Cas try to heal him. 

“I’ve seen what it did to Dean,” Bobby says, eyes hard in a way Dean rarely sees them. “What you’ve done to him. I ain’t letting you turn me into--”

He cuts himself off, but Dean isn’t high enough to ignore it. “Into what, Bobby? Into me?”

“Yeah,” Bobby says. “Yeah.”

Dean nods and walks out of the room. He only stumbles once. 

“He didn’t mean it,” Sam says. 

“Didn’t he?”

Sam sighs. “He just stabbed himself for us. He’s paralyzed. Cut him some slack.”

“At least I ain’t you,” Dean says. “Giving a cripple false hope.”

Sam’s nostrils flare. “I’m going to let that pass, because you’re high.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t.” Dean’s looking for a fight, knows it’s stupid, knows it’s a bad idea. Knows Cas is cut off from Heaven and running on a draining battery. Knows he’d still cut off his own hands if he thought it would get him another taste of Grace.

“Probably not,” Sam agrees. His hands are white on the steering wheel. “But you’re still my brother.”

“Because that meant so much to you when you were--”

“I know what you’re doing, and I’m not going to hurt you,” Sam says. “You want Grace, you can fuck yourself up and live with the consequences.”

Dean says, “Maybe I will.”

Sam starts the Impala without further comment.

Dean doesn’t trust Sam; Sam doesn’t trust Dean. It’s familiar in the same way waking up screaming is. 

They split up. It hurts in a way that’s familiar in the same way Hell was, in a way that Dean’s sure Grace would fix. But Cas is essentially human, now, so the best Dean can do is try to replace Sam with Cas. 

They get kicked out of a brothel and Dean can’t stop laughing. Cas looks concerned, in as much as he ever looks like anything but what he is. 

“God,” Dean gasps, wiping tears from his eyes. “Her face--”

He sets himself off again. Cas doesn’t laugh, but he doesn’t leave, either, which is enough.

“I’m still not letting you die a virgin,” Dean informs Cas, closing the door behind the both of them. “Guess it’s up to me.”

Cas tilts his head. “I do not understand the obsession humans have with fornication.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “If you don’t want to--”

“I did not say that, Dean Winchester.” Cas is suddenly Castiel again, eyes unblinking and glowing faintly in the dim light.

Dean swallows. “Then take off that trench coat.”

Dean bites down on Cas’ neck as Cas pushes in. If he’s searching for the taste of divine absolution, he doesn’t find it.

The way Cas gasps Dean’s name as he begins to move makes Dean feel slightly light-headed all the same. 

Cas is still there in the morning. There’s a bruise on his neck. Dean runs his tongue around his teeth and says, “So. Let’s do this.”

Future Cas is a junkie. 

“You get that from me?” Dean asks him the night before another suicide mission. “Addiction?”

Future Cas laughs like that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard and pops another pain pill. He doesn’t need to answer. 

Dean extends a hand. 

Future Cas smiles and drops three pills into Dean’s palm. Dean swallows one dry, shoves the other two into his jacket pocket on the off chance he survives tomorrow.

Oxy ain’t Grace. But it’s close enough. 

Dean falls asleep in Future Cas’ bed. When he wakes up, Future Cas is sucking on his neck. 

“What--?”

“Seemed fair,” not-Dean’s Cas says. “The taste of you used to make me feel something, too.”


	3. Season Five: Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for suicidal thoughts and drug use.  
> There might be more of this one if I get inspired, but I'm marking it as complete for now. There will definitely be more hbo spn fics in this series and I'm collaborating on another hbo spn set of fics, so subscribe if you're interested!  
> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and I love hearing from y'all.

“I’ll come back if you get clean,” Sam says, and Dean snorts, starts to say something like _How many psychiatrists have you lied to again?_

“Not--” Sam sighs. “Not everything. Just quit the Grace, okay?”

“I’m not dying for your sense of moral superiority.”

“All I’m asking is that you stop hurting yourself so Cas will heal you.”

“Cas ain’t healing anybody, these days,” Dean says, running his tongue around his teeth. The bruise on his neck hasn’t healed yet.

“Well, that solves that,” Sam says. “I mean, sucks for the guy, but…”

Dean presses his lips together as laughter threatens to bubble out. He pops Future Cas’ second oxy instead of responding.

Dean’s not sure if he’s hoping he’ll crash, driving to pick up Sam. He’s not sure if it makes a goddamn bit of difference. 

Sam takes one look at Dean’s pupils and shoves him out of the driver’s seat. Dean doesn’t comment on the shaking in his brother’s hands and Sam doesn’t comment on the way Dean wakes up screaming. 

This much is familiar. 

The night before he loses Sam, Dean’s driving without a destination in mind. Cas appears in the passenger seat. Dean swears and pulls over. 

“Cas, you can’t--”

“I don’t know what to do,” Cas confesses. His voice is quiet, resigned. Lost. “I don’t know what to believe in.”

Dean yanks the emergency brake into place and kisses Cas before he can say anything else.

Cas tastes human, tastes like bad whiskey, but there’s just enough left of something celestial for Dean to cup Cas’ face between his hands and try to memorize what kissing him feels like. 

“None of us do,” Dean says when he has to pull away to breathe. “You ain’t special.”

Cas yanks Dean back into another kiss.

Dean washes the last of Future Cas’ pills down with whatever rotgut whiskey is still in his flask before he cranks up _Rock of Ages_ and heads to his death. He’s grateful for the warm distance between him and the world as Sam-- _not Sam_ \-- beats the shit out of him. It doesn’t stop it from hurting, but it makes it matter a little less. 

Cas heals him. Of course he does.

Cas is leaving too. 

Dean finally lets the laughter out. It tastes like the color blue and the edge of Alastair’s razor. 

Dean sobers up before he gets to Lisa’s. It wouldn’t be fair to her to show up half out of his mind still shivering like a chihuahua and wondering if a bullet to the head would be something Cas could heal. 

(The only thing that stops him from finding out is his promise to Sam.) 

Dean sweats and shakes his way through the withdrawals in a hotel room with two beds and shows up to Lisa’s stone-cold sober for the first time in more than a decade. 

It lasts for all of three days, but Dean manages to walk the edge between not-sober and not-functional for another month. When he gets fired for showing up drunk, Dean packs his bag and leaves Indiana for nowhere in particular. 

He prays, sometimes. For himself and for Sam. For Grace.

Cas never answers. 

Dean’s not sure he wants Cas to. 

Six months after Sam jumped into the Cage, Dean wakes up in a Montana hotel room and doesn’t think about finding out just how far Cas’ non-intervention policy goes. 

He thinks maybe that’s progress.


End file.
